In November 2014, Tanith Lee wrote this dedication for her collection Dancing Through the Fire (which Fantastic Books published in September 2015): “To Philae—and her Mother-Ship, Rosetta—Who danced through the fire, the ice, the dust and the shadow, to bring about the first landing… On a Comet.”
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day has something to say about that.
I neglected to mention that I was going to speak in Albany. Of course, from the time I found out I was on the schedule, I didn’t have enough time to put the presentation together, let alone talk about it here. The acceptance of my offer got trapped in a junk mail folder which I stumbled across last Thursday night, as I was logging off to get some sleep. Instead, I wound up staying up another four hours, putting together most of a PowerPoint presentation to back up my speaking (finalized the slides on the road). And on Sunday morning, I was awake and alert and talking about “Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton: Calling Them Exceptional Is Understatement” at the Mensa Regional Gathering in Albany, New York. The meat of the talk was the fact that President Obama’s election forced me to change only one of the ranked lists on my book The Presidential Book of Lists, but regardless of who wins this year’s election, a lot of the book will have to be changed. In other words, President Obama looks an awful lot like all his predecessors, but neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump looks terribly Presidential in terms of shared characteristics with the 43 people who’ve held the office.
The talk went well, every seat was filled, and nobody left early. And, being a Mensan audience, they pointed out several typos in the slides (which I’ve since corrected). So I’m available to speak to your group, if you’re looking for an entertaining speaker talking about something different during this year’s Presidential election cycle.
Though WSFA hasn’t yet posted it on their own web site, they did send me a press release to let me know that Tanith Lee’s story “Burn Her,” which appeared in her collection Dancing Through the Fire, is a finalist for the WSFA Small Press Award. Full press release below:
Finalists for the 2016 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction were announced August 9, 2016.
The award, recognizing the “best original short fiction” published by small presses in the previous year, will be presented at Capclave in Gaithersburg MD at the Hilton Washington DC North/Gaithersburg on October 7-9, 2016. The winner will be chosen by members of WSFA. For more information, see the WSFA Small Press Award site.
With all the hoopla surrounding Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination for the Presidency of the United States, it’s important to remember that her “first” comes with a caveat: she’s the first female nominee for President from one of the two major parties. But long before she broke that glass ceiling, Victoria Claflin Woodhull broke the gender barrier. In 1872—75 years before Hillary Clinton was born—Victoria Woodhull won the nomination of the Equal Rights Party (who also nominated Frederick Douglass for Vice President). She came to national prominence through a series of lectures and writings on the United States government: what it was and what she believed it ought to be. She collected much of that thinking into the volume The Origins, Tendencies and Principles of Government.
And while she was waging her unsuccessful campaign for the Presidency, she was also part of the growing movement for female suffrage, which culminated in the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920. She was also a proponent of Free Love, freedom for women to choose how and with whom they’d live their lives, and even topics that were radical at the time, and today are simply expressions of equality.
In this newest year of the woman, Gray Rabbit Publications is proud to be publishing two volumes of Victoria Woodhull’s ideas.
The Origins, Tendencies and Principles of Government (266 pages, $8.99, trade paperback, ISBN: 978-1-5154-0047-9) is the original text published by Woodhull’s own firm in 1871.
Victoria C. Woodhull: Ideas Ahead of Her Time (210 pages, $7.99, trade paperback, ISBN: 978-1-5154-0046-8) is a collection of essays on suffrage, government and society, collected together for the first time. Contents include: “A New Constitution for the United States of the World,” “The Memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull to Congress,” “Constitutional Equality,” “A Lecture on Constitutional Equality,” “Children—Their Rights and Privileges,” “And The Truth Shall Make You Free,” “The Elixir of Life, or, Why Do We Die?” and “The Garden of Eden, or, The Paradise Lost & Found.”
Both books are available through all major online retailers, and to physical bookstores via special order through Ingram, which is the distributor of all Gray Rabbit titles.
This time, there was no surprise advance copy, no shock of opening the envelope, because what just arrived were the two boxes I ordered via rush to have them here for a little launch party I’m hosting. So, slightly less surprise when I was opening the box (because, among other things, the label on the side of the box says “RANKING THE VICE PRESIDENTS”. But still; new books with my name on the cover! They’re here! They exist! (And the official publication date is still August 16th.)
Michael A. Ventrella conducted a fairly extensive interview with me, which is now available on his site.
On this date in 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to step on another celestial body (see the photo), a few hours after the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module landed on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin followed him out the door and onto the regolith, and they stayed a few hours.
Three and a half years later, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, aboard Apollo 17, became the last men (to date) to walk on the Moon. It’s been nearly 44 years since people have been more than 300 miles from the surface of the Earth. It’s time….
Data point: CNN’s latest poll says “In a four-way matchup between [Democrat Hillary] Clinton, [Republican Donald] Trump, [Libertarian Gary] Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Clinton carries 42%, Trump 37%, Johnson 13% and Stein 5%.” [See this article.]
Data point: The Washington Post reports that “Both candidates remain highly unpopular — the two most unpopular in the history of Post-ABC polling. By about 2 to 1 (64 percent to 31 percent), Americans view Trump unfavorably. Clinton’s numbers are not quite as negative — 42 percent favorable and 54 percent unfavorable. Half of all registered voters say they have strongly unfavorable views of Trump, while 47 percent say they have strongly unfavorable views of Clinton — the highest ever in a Post-ABC poll for her.” [See this article.]
Data point: The Commission on Presidential Debate says that to be invited to participate in a debate, a candidate must be polling at 15% or more. [See this page.]
Combine those data points, and I’ve decided to urge everyone, if you are included in a political opinion poll, to tell the pollster you support Gary Johnson. I’m not asking you to change your vote (if you’ve already decided who you’re supporting, and apparently 80% of the electorate has already made that decision), and I’m not asking you to vote for any candidate. But I think the debates would be fascinating, and the campaign would be much more interesting than the current cesspool we’re wading through, if it did start to look like a three-way race.
Ian Randal Strock 